Box-eight wrap up

What a whirlwind week! We're well into box nine and I've yet to report on box eight, our first totally waste-free share in (I'm ashamed to say) three or four weeks.

We were glad to have radishes again for our salad. The onion, yellow summer squash and gypsy frying peppers went into Patrick's spectacular fajitas. What a festive way to put a variety of vegetables to use. Fajitas—like breakfast scrambles, stir fry and vegetable tempura—are like gold to CSA members because they tolerate a lot of substitutions. Any other favorites in this category?



Speaking of scrambles, here's last weekend's:



Broccoli and zucchini, served with whole wheat basil biscuits. We love biscuits, but the two of us can only eat so many. We usually stuff ourselves to avoid wasting them—not the healthiest thing. Does anyone have a use for leftover biscuits? I can't imagine they freeze well.

Here's a gorgeous, crunchy salad we made with the iceberg, arugula, radish greens, carrots and purple beans. Did you know you can eat radish greens? They're a little bit spicy.



To our half of the cabbage, Patrick and I added Brussels sprouts for a big batch of roasted brassica. Between our roasted brassica and Marcos and Jamie's summer slaw, the humble cabbage is turning out to be one of our favorite CSA items.

What's left? Oh, yeah, the green beans and the parsley we ate raw. If you don't believe parsley can be a snack item, ask my mom. She says that, as a little kid, I used to get down on all fours in her herb garden and graze just like a cow on parsley. I still eat it on its own by the mouthful. Or ask Sassy, our cat, who launched an attack against an irresistible sprig of parsley on our counter. Maybe someone told her it's a natural breath-freshener.

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Mmmm...Cabbage

I have to admit that cabbage has always been one of those vegetables I know I'm supposed to like, but have never quite enjoyed. In my world it has always been a side dish, generally boiled to a pale green mush and slapped alongside some meat, or mixed with ridiculous amounts of mayo and sugar and once again slapped alongside some meat. Boy how things have changed.
While Jamie was preparing this mayo free slaw recipe my hand kept reaching in and grabbing handfuls of delicious raw cabbage. Once more, CSA membership has re-introduced me to my food. The crunch and depth of flavor contained in each bite of the cabbage was phenomenal and invigorating, a sharp pop as the flavor of summer greens was released then followed by a subtle buttery aftertaste. Thank you Driftless! I think there is a new candidate for my vegetable garden next year.
Here is the recipe we made from such good food stock (the peppers came from our garden, everything else from Driftless), a wonderful summer slaw perfectly suited to life as a man course. Plus it has no mayo so it is great for vegans and summer potlucks. Next time I might add some mustard seeds.

Summer Slaw
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
8 cups coarsely shredded green cabbage (about 1/2 large head)
1 cup thinly sliced red bell pepper
1 cup thinly sliced green bell pepper
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 carrot, coarsely shredded
3 scallions, chopped
3 radishes (radishii?), thinly sliced

Whisk sugar, vinegar, and oil to blend in large bowl. Add remaining ingredients and toss to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover tightly and refrigerate at least 4 hours, tossing occasionally. Keep refrigerated.

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Box #8: Our friendly neighborhood pickup site

We pick up our CSA veggies from a neighborhood home that acts as a pickup site. Sometimes a food co-op is a pickup site, and I've even heard of CSAs that deliver right to individual households for a fee. You and your box mates should consider the pickup procedure when you're choosing a farm.

When we first were considering CSAs, I was bummed that the co-op we frequent doesn't host any CSA pickups. It would be really convenient to grab our farm's veggies along with all our other food, and we'd know exactly what to buy to compliment the box.

As it turns out, visiting our pickup site has become one of our favorite parts of the week. Picking up the CSA reminds me a little of Election Day, because it's one of the few times you interact with a gathering of neighbors. Julie and Sean offer their quirky, welcoming backyard (with chalkboard, picnic table, garden, U.S. Constitution and antique reference books) as a distribution hub for dozens of households.

Everyone you meet there has at least one thing in common with you, so you talk about the veggies and trade recipes. Smart members bring their own bags so they don't have to schlep the box home and back. Sean taught us how to collapse the boxes with a "gouge the eyes" technique on the bottom flaps.

According to our farm's Web site, pickup site hosts get deeply discounted boxes. Becoming a host might help defray the daunting upfront payment for a CSA. I think hosts also might end up with extra veggies when members flake out on picking up their boxes.

Here's what we got: iceberg lettuce, green savoy cabbage, carrots, Italian flat-leaf parsley, broccoli, yellow summer squash, zucchini, arugula, gypsy frying peppers, the last of the delicious fresh garlic, radishes, green and purple beans, sweet onion and basil.

This is one of those boxes that made me sure we should get a whole share next year. I'd really like to roast that whole cabbage, slice that whole zucchini and fry it with corn meal, and not split up that adorable family of radishes or that cute pair of peppers.

But, so it goes. Each week we get out the scale and the knife and carefully form two equal piles, even if it means cutting a head of garlic in half. This takes a little patience, but it results in each household getting a lot of variety. I've known other box mates who divide veggies based on preference and avoid cutting things up. That's something you'll have to work out with your box mates if you share a share. Here's how our table looks every Thursday night:

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Box-seven wrap up

I love the crunchy-sweet green bean. It's one of the few vegetables I'm used to eating fresh off the vine, because my grandma used to grow them. I know they're tasty stir-fried, but they usually don't make it into the pan. What a treat to see them with wacky purple skins:

Patrick kept an open mind about the iceberg lettuce. It's not my favorite, but it does add some crunch. What better way to dress it up than with bacon, tomato, sourdough and mayo?

When Patrick picked up box seven, pickup-site coordinator Julie was like, "What cocktail are you going to make this week?" Here it is: CSA raspberries, vodka and Izze sparkling clementine juice.

Now for my favorite part: fennel-fruit stew. I used the rest of the raspberries, the fennel bulb, stems and leaves, all the not-so fresh fruit I could find in the kitchen (a pear, a peach that was abused in the grocery bag, and an orange), and some frozen strawberries and blueberries. I seasoned it with a cinnamon stick, a few cloves secured in a tea ball, and honey.

I let it stew for like 30 minutes on low heat, then spooned it over cooked wheat berries and added yogurt. It wasn't pretty, but it sure tasted great.

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Quick waste update: We can't be trusted

I could probably spell "shame" with the veggies we've neglected lately.



It was with great dismay that I discovered these two formerly crisp and nutritious little carrots, flaccid and defeated in the crisper. And here's a week-old picture of some lettuce from two weeks ago.



What sad excuses for stewards of the earth we've turned out to be. We do much, much worse things than waste a couple ounces of veggies. But we don't feel that bad about the driving we do each week. We don't feel that bad if we're too lazy to rinse gross empty cat-food cans for recycling. Wasting CSA veggies really gets to us. And in that way it's probably making us better people. That or whiny pseudo-ascetic progressives.

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Chard!

Ah, chard. Having shamefully never tasted of the the chard before, I was not really sure how to use it. A safe bet seemed to be a Saturday morning scramble, always a favorite around these parts. I had read that the stems can be bitter if not cooked, so I sauteed them with olive oil, some of the CSA fresh garlic, and a few dried chili peppers.



After the stems looked sufficiently tender, I added the chopped leaves sauteed them for a few minutes. Finishing it off with four organic eggs from the Wedge coop, scrambled all together, looking and smelling pretty darn good. Ah, chard.

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Faith in our farmers

"Eating is an agricultural act."
—Wendell Berry

Almost everyone relies on some sort of farmer for almost all of their food. But the degree to which eaters trust farmers varies. Making a grocery list without regard to region or season and fulfilling it at a grocery store requires faith only that farmers grew, packed and shipped something edible. As we've seen recently, even that amount of trust can be misplaced.

When we committed to a CSA, Jamie, Marcos, Patrick and I put a little more on the line, not the least of which was our investment of $500 for a full share to split between our two households. We trusted the folks at Driftless to use it well. So far, I think they have.

Next came the leap of faith that Driftless would stock our crispers with something useful each week. Satisfied with that, this week Pat and I decided to stretch our faith to the next level: We'd let them determine how we prepared the food.

We're pretty picky about recipes, usually working from just a few tried and true cookbooks or putting the onus on ourselves to invent something that will honor its ingredients. Saturday, we tried a recipe for fish tacos that Farmer Mike included in our CSA newsletter.



We set aside all the required veggies. We bought the tortillas, limes, yogurt and jalapeno. We bought the fish—we though a pound would be too much for us, so we used .6 pounds. That was plenty. The tortillas we like are small, so a pound would have overwhelmed us.



Pat loves his multi-pot deep fryer thing. He gets all professional and sets up little stations.

This was a spectacular dinner that could have served four. We wrapped the leftovers in tin foil and they were gone the next day. We still have a little sauce left over, the best part. We're going to try it on portobello sandwiches.

Fish Tacos With Arugula and Carrots (from Driftless Organics' July 24 newsletter)
1 lb. white, flaky fish like cod, mahi mahi, walleye or tilapia, cut into long strips [we used .6 lbs.]
Corn tortillas [we used 12]
2 carrots, grated
2 cups arugula, washed, dried and shredded [we laid the pile on the cutting board and sliced it with a chef's knife]
1/2 sweet onion, thinly sliced [yum.]
Lime wedges for garnish

Sauce:
2/3 cup plain yogurt or sour cream [we used Cultural Revolution yogurt, which is quite tart]
3 Tbsp. mayonnaise
Juice of one lime
1 jalapeno pepper, minced or 1 Tbsp hot sauce
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. ground coriander
1/4 tsp. chipotle powder (optional)
3 Tbsp. cilantro (optional)

For fish:
Lime juice and salt [because of a typo in the recipe here, we only bought 2 limes and therefore had no garnish]

Squeeze lime juice over fish and salt it.

Whisk sauce ingredients together and set aside.

Either grill or bread and deep fry fish. (Mix 1 cup flour, 2 Tbsp. cornstarch, 1 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt and quickly mix in an egg beaten with some light beer. Roll each piece of fish in flour then dip in breading and slide into a couple inches of 375-degree oil until golden brown. Drain on paper towel)

Warm each tortilla on a hot pan and serve topped with fish, veggies, sauce and lime wedges.

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